Bewy's Banter – Shaun Bewick Column Round 17

MY SEASON so far has been OK without been anything too outstanding. I found a bit of consistency from about the fourth or fifth game and then strung some decent games in a row together which I wasn’t too unhappy about after coming off being out of league footy for 12 months. I'm then not really sure what happened. I had a good game against Peel and then an OK game against East Fremantle, and then played the three worst games of my career.

That knocked me around a little a bit and made me question whether I still had it for this level anymore and where I was at with my football. Hase was real good with me though. After my first quiet game against East Perth he told me what he thought I needed to improve on, and then the next week when I didn’t play so well against Swan Districts he still pushed me, and didn’t threaten me with the axe or anything. He was still really encouraging and just told me what I needed to do and then I didn’t get a kick again against West Perth. Hase told me leading up to that game that I really needed to get a kick so I wasn’t in any doubt with where I was at with him so I was happy with the whole way that was handled.

I didn’t have a good game again and I got dropped. I hadn’t been dropped, even though I missed all of last year, since 2011 when I was at West Perth. It was one of those old feelings that came back that wasn’t too fun, but I had to play reserves and like all the guys said to me, it is fun going back there, there isn’t as much pressure on you and at that lower level you can have some freedom to run around a bit more and chase the footy. It was good to get a kick again and in that one game I probably equalled the amount of touches I had in my last three games. Not that everything is about possessions, but it was good to get some confidence back to know that I could find some footy.

Unfortunately that same day against Claremont, three of our best four best players this season went down with injuries (Ryan Cook, Adam Guglielmana, Ashton Hams) and the next week against Perth I was able to come back into the team which I was pretty happy about to be able to come back in without spending too much time in the reserves. It was good that day. We played really well and were up from the get go against Perth. We got a win, I found some footy and got some confidence back and then we had a bye again. But hopefully that doesn’t change too many things for us.

It is weird how big of a part confidence plays with your football. I wish I could really put it down to something, but to be honest over the past two weeks with that reserves game and then in the league team against Perth, I made a bit more of a conscious effort to be more relaxed going into them, and not put so much pressure on myself and think about it a lot during the week. I don’t so much put a lot of pressure on myself, but I'm someone who thinks about games a lot leading into them during the week. Especially when I was playing those bad games, it was a consistent thing during the week because I knew I needed to play well. It's weird how quickly I went from playing OK to not playing so well and then was able to have two good games before the bye. Hopefully I now can bring that into this week again against Subiaco.

There was a lot going on around the club and during games in that period as well. In the game I didn’t play against Claremont, we got overrun in the final minutes, the game against Swan Districts we coughed up a 34-point lead and that didn’t help the mood around the place at all. It wasn’t a good month really for the club or for me, but hopefully it's behind us now.

Just getting that win over Perth eased the tension in the rooms a lot come training last week. Everyone is a bit more friendly and relaxed, and not looking over their back as much. Everyone is pretty happy to get a win for Hase as well and hopefully we can get a few more for him leading into the end of the year. I'm sure he doesn’t want to, and I'm sure none of the boys do, go out with six losses so hopefully we carry that last win into these last six games now.

Personally over these last six games I do need to play consistently, but also play good for the team and show whoever the next coach may be that I can play on the wing because that's my spot. We've got plenty of guys coming through like Brendan Verrier who is having a really good year, Jarrod Parry has come back from two knee reconstructions, Marlon Pickett is coming back from having his appendix out and then for the rest of the year we'll have Jarrod Pickett, Jarrod Garlett and Jacob Dragovich who are all training with us. They are going to be a threat to our positions and pushing for spots for the last six games. I have to make sure I'm on top of my game to hold down my spot.

It's not so much a weird feeling amongst the group because nobody has spoken about it, but we all know in the back of our minds that our next coach will be taking plenty of notice of what we are doing now. We are all focused on trying to get as many wins as we can for Hase to finish off the year, but I'm sure everyone does think about that they do need to impress whoever may be the coach next year as well.